


no power on earth or below

by stardreamertwo



Series: lay me down [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Funerals, Gen, Going Home, Grief/Mourning, burial rites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26767984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardreamertwo/pseuds/stardreamertwo
Summary: “Wildmother,” she says. “We return this body to You."Caduceus comes home.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Clay Family, Caduceus Clay & The Mighty Nein
Series: lay me down [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951171
Comments: 20
Kudos: 64





	no power on earth or below

“We’ve got visitors,” Constance says.

“Is it them?” Clarabelle says, already scrambling to her feet. Caduceus always has new bugs in his staff for her and she always has new ones from the Grove for him. They’ve made a routine out of trading them.

Clarabelle is the only one of her siblings that doesn’t bother pretending not to be excited, but she misses her brother. They all do.

“Why don’t you go and find out?”

She’s out the door before Constance can even get their teapot filled.

“Let me,” Corrin says, shifting slowly out of her chair. She’s been stiff ever since the Menagerie, and it’s not as easy to move as it was, but they trust her to know her limits; Constance hands the teapot over and steps aside. “You go bring him in.”

She smiles and heads for the door. “I’ll tell him we’re making dinner.”

Constance steps outside, though, and immediately something is wrong. Clarabelle stands at the open gate, but Caduceus isn’t there to meet her. It is them: there’s Fjord in his cape, Caleb’s purple coat, and Yasha standing above them all. But that in and of itself is wrong- Yasha is tall, but Caduceus is taller. Why can’t she see him?

Where is her son?

She walks down the small path and Clarabelle turns to her.

“Mom,” she says, but Constance meets Fjord’s eyes and she doesn’t need to say anything else.

They are Clays. They are gravekeepers. Caduceus is not with his friends, and their family knows grief when they see it.

“Come in,” Constance says. Her voice sounds thin, but it is steady when she, suddenly, is not.

They turn back towards the temple. The Mighty Nein, minus one, follow.

Clarabelle is leaning into her. Constance has one arm around her shoulder and she keeps it there as they step through the door. The rest of their family looks up- they look at her, and then at the people behind her, and then at her again. She watches them realize it, that same terrible understanding.

“Caduceus is dead,” she says.

It doesn’t need confirmation, but the quiet she hears behind her confirms it anyway.

“We tried to bring him back,” says Jester. “It- it didn’t work.” Her voice breaks on the last word and she begins to cry, soft and sniffling, like she’s trying not to be heard and failing.

“He’s gone home,” Cornelius whispers, and Constance moves towards him on instinct. Their family shifts together, pulling each other closer, as if it can reduce the ache of what is missing; she reaches for Calliope on her left, and Colton on her right, and Clarabelle who has not let go of her, and for a moment all they do is hold each other.

“He’s Hers now,” Corrin responds, and she nods. He was always Hers- now he has returned to Her, and he is home. It is a good thing. It hurts, but it is a good thing.

“We brought him back. His body,” Caleb says, after a moment. He is quiet but Constance hears him, and she turns instantly, breath catching.

It’s a gift she didn’t expect. There is no body with them; she’d assumed they couldn’t carry it. And though Caduceus would return to the Wildmother no matter where he was, it is another grief, not to bury him here.

But his body is here. He has returned to Her and his body has returned to them, and it is a gift.

“It’s in here. He is- just as he was, and he can stay there for as long as you need.”

There are five pieces of amber in Caleb’s palms, and he holds it out to them like an offering. The sunset plays off of them, smooth and golden. She reaches for one, turns it over in her hands, as tears press at her throat.

“I’m sorry,” Fjord tells them, quietly. His voice is thick. “We wanted to bring him home.”

“You did,” she says. “You did.”

They start in the morning. Constance wakes with the sun and stays there, stares at the dawn through the window. Then she turns over and shakes her husband.

“We’re digging today,” she says.

“Yeah,” he replies.

His arms are around her, her face tucked against his shoulder. They breathe. Then they get out of bed and get dressed. There’s work to be done.

Calliope and Corrin are already in the kitchen when they walk out. Together they wake Colton, then Clarabelle, and then they gather the shovels and picks. It is quiet, but not the bad kind of quiet. A gentle quiet. A grieving quiet. They have done this a hundred times before- they know how to dig a grave.

“Should we wake them?” Constance asks, glancing outside. Usually, a few of them will dig the grave, while the others stay and provide comfort to the mourners. But all of them are mourners, now, and she does not quite know where to draw the line between his family here and his family in the dome outside.

Calliope answers, after a moment. “We should ask.”

“I’ll do it,” Colton says, quickly. Constance nods, and then he walks over and knocks on the dome.

It shimmers and fades, revealing six people curled around each other in varying states of wakefulness. The dome seems bigger than it should be, almost, as if there’s too much space for them now.

Caleb, who looks most awake, sits up. “ _Ja_?”

“We, uh,” Colton says. “We’re digging his grave today.”

“Oh. Oh.”

The rest of the group is sitting up now, too. They pull each other to their feet and she sees the way they cluster around each other, the way they hold on, and grief is different for everyone but that, Constance understands.

“Did you want help?” Yasha offers.

“We don’t need it,” Corrin says. “But if you wanted to.”

They glance at each other. Then they nod.

“C’mon,” Calliope says. “Let’s go.”

The Clays have a space in the graveyard. Caduceus, like all of them, has had his gravesite picked out since he was a kid. His is a nice one: an old branch fell by it, years ago, and now it is home to violet coral and fly amanita and fairy caps. And now he will be home to that too.

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. In the quiet, she can faintly hear spring water, bubbling up.

When she looks again, Corrin is getting to her feet and nodding. The plants have given their permission; now they dig.

They trade off through the day. Beau is the first to take a shovel, but they all do eventually. Constance brings the kettle out and makes tea, and at some point, Colton and Jester go inside to make food for everyone.

Fjord stares a little too long at the sandwiches, when Jester offers them to the group. She looks at him, then back at the plate, then sets them aside very quickly and hugs him.

Constance takes the plate and puts it somewhere more stable. They are weeping and she pretends she does not see it; it is their grief, and unless they choose to share it with her, she will let them have it. She can never know, after all, what exactly it is they’ve lost: she knows a son, and a good man, and a boy she was proud of, but they have seen Caduceus in a thousand different ways and she will never be able to know all of them. If there is one thing years of watching grief have taught her, it is that it is different for everyone. Maybe that’s a cruelty- maybe that’s a kindness- but either way she lets it be.

They finish in the afternoon. It’s a good grave, deep and tall, and there is a quiet pride in the dirt on their hands. They’ve made a good place for him to rest. Constance gathers them all, slowly, and then they head back towards the temple.

“Here?” Caleb says, when they’re all gathered around his empty bed, a stretcher laid atop it. Constance could have taken it out ages ago, but they all decided they’d rather leave it, just in case he ever had to come home for a little bit.

Well. He’s home now. She nods.

Caleb sets the amber in a circle around the bed and speaks a few words she doesn’t understand. The stones shimmer and then there he is, still and silent, his eyes just barely shut.

Constance presses a hand to her mouth. A few strands of hair fall over his eye and she cannot resist the urge to reach up and brush them aside. It’s a little messy- a few of the braids he always has are gone. They’ll have to fix it, before they bury him.

They wash him and dress him in clean linen. Fjord helps her rebraid his hair. Then, carefully, they carry him out and lower him into the ground. There’s no coffin: just the earth, and a layer of leaves at the bottom of the grave to help the body decompose.

Constance looks at her son in his grave, his hair bright against the soil. He'll grow good tea, she thinks.

By the time they finish replacing the dirt and the plants they dug up with it, the sun is setting. The grove glows faintly golden with the light, as Calliope returns from the pump with a watering can. She hands it to Corrin, who reaches out and begins to pour it over Caduceus’s grave.

Corrin passes it to Colton. Colton passes it to Calliope. Calliope passes it to Clarabelle, and Clarabelle pours before looking at Constance, then at the Mighty Nein. She nods.

Clarabelle holds the watering can out towards them. “You water it,” she says.

They all look at each other. Then Fjord steps forward and takes it.

They pass it among themselves until it goes through all of them. Then, finally, they offer it back to Clarabelle, who points at Cornelius. They give it back to Cornelius, who waters the grave. Then he gives it back to her.

Constance stands before the grave and breathes.

“Wildmother,” she says. “We return this body to You. He has lived well, and served life. May you take him back into your earth, and may he make good soil. May you welcome him home.”

“May you welcome him home,” whisper voices behind her. She reaches out, and pours what’s left in the can over the dirt.

Maybe it is the last of the magic in him, spreading out into the earth. Maybe it is a gift from Her. Maybe there isn’t a difference. But the last droplets soak into the soil and then, all at once, Caduceus’s grave bursts into bloom.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Lay Me Down," by the Oh Hellos. Thanks to Chrome, for listening to me yell about this, and to salamoonder, for reading it over.
> 
> The prompt for this was "Write about Caduceus growing up, his time alone, or returning home." All things considered, this _does_ fit the bill. Technically.
> 
> Also, an incomplete list of the flowers that grow from his grave: violet coral, an edible purple mushroom; fly amanita, a psychedelic mushroom; fairy caps, chosen purely for their name; the pink lichen he uses to dye his hair; and of course, _camellia sinensis_ , the tea plant.


End file.
